Google, under fire recently for not being open enough about its own privacy policies, supports a wide-ranging federal bill protecting privacy.
The search giant believes federal action on the issue would reassure consumers.
In a letter to Congressman Joe Barton Google's chief lobbyist Alan Davidson said: "Google supports the …

COMMENTS

Sweden and encrypted pipes

I hope Google move their servers outside of Sweden, encrypt the connection to Gmail, so that Swedish people can continue to exercise their rights under the EU privacy directive and protect themselves from warrantless surveillance by the Swedish military.

Moreover I hope no data from anyone else in the EU is placed in Sweden where the Swedish military can take a look, sans warrant, because that would be a violation of other EU citizens privacy right.

I hope that ISPs in neighbouring countries make a point of routing around Sweden, because to expose their customers traffic to surveillance, they also expose themselves to lawsuits.

It's a pity that Sweden should depart from the norm of EU privacy, but the Nazi's in Germany and the Defence dept in Sweden and the UK with it's 42 day mini-guantanmo law are thankfully the exception in Europe.

Edward Norton be worried

Don't be Evil...

I have nothing against google, i use their services privately. (in moderation)

but anyone foolish enough to use all their nice "free" services for business has got to rethink that.

most business and some private data that is given to google through these free office apps et al should /never/ be given out so freely. do people not realize that they are not incidentally showing their goods to some philantropic org but rather throwing their goods into a system set up /specifically/ to trawl the intartubes for usable data to sell advertising?

@AC

Urchin Tracker

You would think they would be paying for that information, but no, instead they make it out as a service for the website. Whilst you get a little demographic data, they get the bigger picture.

Now what you can derive from this bigger picture has never really been known, but it could mean that you could spot trends for investment just before they happen, and well ahead of any public media, and if that accuracy is close to say 90% then google will eventually take over the world :)

It is just a thought, but they can see how people are using the web in moments, and they didn't pay anyone for it, they just offer a little service. Most government websites are using urchin tracker, it is bizarre have they not heard of server logs, though urchin does give them a slightly wider picture, it is our privacy that is being traded, and for nothing really.